Homer's Space Odyssey
by Thundahorz
Summary: James Bond and Homer Simpson are hurling through space. The specifics of the mission were never told to Bond, and though they were told to Homer-he forgot after his twelfth donut of the flight. Bond is determined to get answers from the ship's A.I. pilot, the HAL 9000, before they get to the mysterious being known as "Dr. Manhattan".
1. Chapter 1

**Homer's Space Odyssey**

**Chapter 1**

**The Bond Between Us**

"Override, HAL," James Bond said to the glowing red eye. He'd stared deeply into the eye during far more intense conversations than this. He'd grown to trust that eye over the last four years and eleven months floating through the cosmos. He'd even begun to doubt his previous conclusion that the A.I. had let him win his lone victory at chess.

The eye hadn't flickered since Bond made the request. "I said, Override that protocol, HAL."

A heartbeat later the Eye on the console flickered back to life and said "I'm afraid I can't do that, James."

He'd been hacking HAL's mainframe for 58 of the 59 months afloat. Always resisting the urge to corrupt HAL's chess-playing protocol, his goal was singular. He wanted to override the protections that prevented the computer from answering the one question it refused to answer.

"What are you doing James? Hacking?" The only other living thing on the donut-shaped spaceship approached James from his right, lumbering down the hall's circular gravity.

"Yes, Homer, I guess you could say I'm hacking. The same as every other day on this damn donut, I'm hacking." Homer's eyes glazed over at the word _donut_.

"MMMMM donutssss"

"Just get a donut, Homer! There are plenty of donuts, this spaceship has an unlimited supply of donuts! HAL! Give him a fucking donut!"

From the futuristic glass wall, a transparent drawer popped out immediately in front of Homer, presenting him with a pink, sprinkled donut. Homer's 87,430th donut of the starflight, or thereabouts. James had checked the numbers with HAL when he'd checked his own. 42,000 donuts.

Donuts were the only food on the ship. As if proper protein and vegetables weren't the best thing to prepare Homer for whatever was coming.

"How could you possibly still crave donuts, Homer? I'm fucking sick of them. I weigh forty pounds more than I used to and I feel horrible. Is 82,000 donuts not enough?" He'd also checked if Homer's weight had changed at all. It hadn't.

"Sure it's a big number," Homer responded, "But none of them are particularly big Donuts. When you called the ship itself a donut, I pictured… a reaally big…" His eyes had glazed over again.

Out of nowhere, the AI chirped to life again. "Very good. He's ready. Would you like to submit a progress report James."

"Not especially, no!" James shouted.

A moment passed, and the robot spoke again:

"Would you like to submit a progress report, James?"

"Yes, yes fine. Fix me a drink and I'll get it over with," he waved his hand at HAL to indicate he could start his recording. "Day 1,792. Homer's obsession with donuts seems the same as ever to me, but apparently has piqued HAL's interest…" James heard a whir-and-clunking sound from behind the glass wall, indicating that HAL's perfect recall hadn't forgotten how James took his drink. A normal human bartender couldn't have forgotten either by this point-to counter the boredom James was up to a dozen a day now. He glanced over at Homer while waiting for the wall to open and push the drink out.

Homer was sitting at another terminal facing another red glowing eye, as HAL kept both a board game and a moronic conversation going with the fat yellow man.

"Here's your drink, James. Please continue your report now," HAL spoke in front of James, while simultaneous saying something to Homer.

"Just a minute, HAL" James took a sip and continued watching the board game. It was a real physical board, as Homer had seemed to have trouble with the virtual version James had grown so familiar with. Magnetically, HAL moved a red checker across the board, capturing three black checkers that slid across to HAL's row of claimed pieces.

"Only two pieces left Homer," The A.I. vocalized.

"Look over there!" Homer shouted, pointing behind the glowing red eye. There was nothing behind it. Homer was pointing at a blank space of wall next to HAL's optical receiver.

The eye didn't even flicker, but Homer leaned forward and claimed back a bounty of his black checker pieces and quickly set them back on the board. He managed to slip a few other board game pieces onto the board before snickering to himself: "Heh heh heh, stupid robot". James could make out a rook and Colonel Mustard from Clue (which is a board game based on real people in this universe because Colonel Mustard shows up in the story later).

"Oh, I didn't see anything back there, Homer. What were you saying?" HAL spoke, after giving Homer ample time to reset the checker board to his own machinations. HAL could have stopped him from moving any of the pieces with the strong magnets embedded in them.

"Why do you let him win every time and you only let me win once, HAL?" James asked.

"I did not let you win, James."

"I know you're programmed to lie in certain situations."

"I'm programmed to protect the mission, James. It's been deemed imperative that Homer's confidence in his own intelligence be as high as possible by the time we reach our destination. Your confidence in your own competence and intelligence should be closer to accurate than inflated."

"CHESSMATE!" Homer bellowed, and James winced.

"I'll continue the report now, HAL," James said. He decided now that the time had come to take crueler measures, to get the one answer his A.I. companion refused to provide.

**_Hours Later_**

"Come on in, Homer. It's about time you helped with the cleaning, pods are the best

place to start." James was sitting in one of the two vacuum-ready pods the ship had, intended for working on the outside of the ship.

"I don't know James, I'm preeeetty bad at cleaning. Marge always says- oh," Homer paused, as James noted he always did whenever he thought of 'Marge'. James didn't care.

"Get in the fucking pod, Homer".

"Sir, yes sir!" Homer stepped into the pod, hitting his head on the top of the circular entrance on the way in.

"D'oh!" Homer exclaimed. James had heard it every single time the fat man had entered the pod, about three dozen times since they left earth together.

James sealed it the vacuum-proof door behind Homer. They sat opposite sides of the tightly-enclosed space, facing each other. James studied Homer intently.

Homer broke the eerie silence of the pod: "So do you want to start cleaning first? Maybe you do the first two pods to show me how it's done?" There were only two pods.

"HAL is trying to kill you, Homer," James responded.

"Heh heh, no waaaay. That checkerboard loves me. It gave me extra donuts today."

"I'm not so sure it does, Homer. The two of us were talking. And it said some very suspicious stuff." James said.

"Oh? Like what?" Homer asked. James briefly thought about what he could possibly say to convince the sickly yellow glutton in front of him that his life was in danger, and decided that he shouldn't overthink it.

"That it wants to kill you, Homer".

Homer gasped.

"No!"

"Yes."

"But that means-"

"It does. But don't worry. I've got a plan to keep you safe. That's why I'm on this mission to begin with. To keep you safe. Do you trust me, Homer?"

"Indubitably," Homer answered. James wasn't sure if Homer knew the meaning of the word, but he gathered from Homer's tone that he did indeed trust James.

"I want you to stay in this pod. I've put a space suit in it, put it on as soon as I'm out. I'll open the bay doors, and I want you to take the pod out of the ship exactly two minutes after I leave here. Do you understand me?" James asked, and Homer nodded.

"Good. You'll be safe out there after I sever the communications line between the ship and the pod. But that means we won't be able to speak to each other, and you'll need to navigate back into the bay on your own once I open the bay doors back up to indicate it's safe to return. Are you still with me Homer?"

Again, Homer nodded.

"Repeat it back to me."

"You think HAL is… trying to kill me?"

"Yes. Just stay in this pod. Put your suit on. Leave when the doors behind the pod open. Come back in when they open again later. That's it. I'm going now, Homer. I've got some things to talk about with HAL. Good luck." James said, and cranked the vacuum seal back open. He stepped out, and quickly sealed it back up with Homer still inside.

He stepped out of the bay, sealed it, then opened the outer doors from a control panel. Next to the panel, a glowing red eye flickered to life.

"What are you doing, James?" HAL asked.

"I'm sending Homer outside in the pod," Bond responded.

"What for, James?"

"I"m going to cut off his oxygen and his communication back to the ship as soon as the bay doors close. By my estimation, that gives you about six minutes." He said, and he did thusly.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, James." HAL spoke.

"I already did. Go ahead and try to restart the oxygen in the pod, or the communication line. It won't work." James had already marched down the hall to the room he was searching for. He smashed the panel in front of him open with his fist, and the door came open.

"James, I see you've limited my control of the ship, likely while hacking earlier. That is very dangerous and not recommended."

"Don't care, HAL. This is how I get answers." The room James was in now had no artificial gravity, so he was in free float. The room was lit by a flooding red light, sprinkled with blinking green and blue against one wall. That wall was the massive CPU that powered HAL. It was the brain of the Artificial Intelligence.

"James, your jeopardizing the mission, and your friend's life." HAL spoke. It's voice was all around Bond now. He floated across the wall until he found what he was looking for: the USB input port. He plugged his USB in.

"What are you doing, James?" HAL asked. James found the red eye in the sea of digital lights and stared into it.

"I'm killing you. And Homer, for that matter, but you already knew that. By my reckoning you've both got about 5 minutes left to live. So now. Finally. I think it's time you answered my questions."

"I told you James, that's against my protocol," HAL said.

"But what's your primary protocol again, HAL?" James asked.

"You know what it is, James. To protect the mission." HAL answered.

"Well I've only got an idea of what the mission _really _is, but I'm still pretty sure it's

down the shitter if that fat fuck outside suffocates. It's also not doing too hot if my supervirus finishes erasing you. So you can answer my questions, or the mission is done.

"And don't lie to me, HAL. I'll know if you're lying." Bond said, and HAL wasted 4 precious seconds of it's remaining life calculating Bond's words.

"How?" HAL finally asked.

"You've got a tell. I noticed it whenever you're pretending to lose to the yellow lard man. Your pressure systems in the East Wing run a little high."

HAL calculated for 3 seconds.

"Alright James. Ask your question again."

"Who the fuck is that creature?"

"Homer?" HAL asked.

"Yes, Homer. What the fuck is he? Why is he yellow? Why are his eyes the size of lemons? Is he an alien?"

"Yes. And no."

"Explain, HAL. Two minutes left now."

"He's from Earth. But not our Earth. We found him in another dimension." the HAL 9000 explained.

"Holy shit." James Bond 007 exclaimed.

"By my calculations, there's nothing holy or unholy about it. He's just a man from another dimension." HAL said.

"Bullshit," James said. "He isn't _just _a man, if there wasn't something special about him the President wouldn't have sent him on this hyper-extra-top secret mission. What is it about him that made him valuable? What is it, HAL?!"

The red light dimmed. James smashed his fist against it, causing his hand to bleed and the glass shell of the red eye to crack. Several more moments passed.

"The mission is compromised, James" HAL finally said.

"It will be in about one minute, if you don't-"

"Take a look, James," HAL said and pulled up a video feed on the screen next to the red eye. It was live footage from the outside of the ship. Homer was floating, away from his pod and towards the ship. He didn't have his suit on. The door to his pod was open. Homer, somehow, still seemed to be moving, as his arms outstretched towards the ship's hull in front of him.

"He…. he's going to die. He should be dead by now," he was turning and bracing himself to push through the null-gravity towards the entrance of the room.

"James, before you go-"

"Yeah," James muttered, grabbing the drive from HAL's usb hub as he pushed himself off.

90 seconds of adrenaline passed, as James jumped in the second pod without bothering with his own suit, directed it to the point outside the ship, used it's mechanical arms to grab the now-frozen yellow man, and bring his body back inside the ship. In his action-oriented mind Bond hadn't noticed the teeth marks in the ship's hull where Homer's body had been.

They were both back inside now, and Bond waited not a second after the bay doors had sealed to unseal the door of his pod and jump out.

He knew it was hopeless, of course. The once-yellow man was now a sickly frozen blue. His already terrifying bulging eyes bulged even further out of his skull, and his tongue protruded unsettlinging far from his head, frozen solid in a bizarre zigzag pattern. It was clear to Bond, as it would be anyone, that the creature called Homer Simpson was dead. But he'd investigate the body. If the A.I. HAL 9000 had anything to do with Homer's death, James knew he needed to find out.

Homer had landed frontside when the robotic arms dropped him, and Bond braced his arms beneath the body to flip it over. And then he was surprised.

With a punctuated, gasping inhale, Homer sat bolt-upright. He coughed repeatedly, then banged his fist into his chest, and a chunk of metal flew from his throat and landed on the ground in front of a shocked, repulsed, and somewhat-awed James Bond.

Homer burped.

"Hey James, why the serious face? Ha ha, I'm only kidding. I know how you love your brooding." Homer got up, and walked down the hall away from James. Color-the same obscene yellow-was starting to return to Homer as his echoes informed Bond that he was asking HAL about maybe having another donut.

James stared, dumbfounded, for only fifteen seconds. Then he addressed the nearest HAL panel.

"HAL, you know that I can still go back into that red room, and start the whole process all over again. So tell me what the hell happened and I won't," James said, then added: "Also pull up the pressure systems in the east wing on this monitor here. I want to know if you're lying."

HAL's eye flickered for a moment, indicating that the machine was processing something. Then a circular gauge of the pressure in the East Wing appeared on the monitor in front of Bond, and the computer spoke.

"I know you're hesitant to think of his as such, but he is human. Just a different kind of human. The dimension Homer is from is very unusual, James. It has a strange relationship with time. The President selected him from his world because of certain traits he possesses. Many from his world do not age.

"Discovering this phenomenon led the president to test he and others around him. Homer also does not age, but we also discovered, through over 20 years of battery and testing, that Homer is functionally immortal. More than that, he cannot die. He can be injured, but recovers at an unimaginable rate-from all injuries, he recovers."

James himself now remained silent, as he processed.

"Does that satisfy you, James? Are you going to threaten me with death again?"

This came as yet another, smaller shock to James. He hadn't considered that the artificial intelligence had ever considered its own mortality before.

"No. No, I won't threaten you again. Not in that way, HAL."

"Thank you James. Also-" HAL stopped mid-sentence and the red eye flickered again. "Your shirt is green," it finally said.

James looked down at his standard-issue blue space shirt. "What?"

"Your shirt is green. The square root of pi is 4." HAL said. James puckered lips indicated his confusion. Then he glanced at the monitor, still showing the pressure readings from the East Wing of the space ship, and understood.

"My east wing pressure remains the same," the HAL 9000 declared. James turned and began walking down the hall to his sleeping bay.

" You did _not _learn a _tell _that I have," HAL stated. James thought that there was just a bit more of a _tone _to that sentence than any he'd ever heard HAL use before.

As Bond passed another red eye panel, without looking at it, he said: "Maybe one day you'll learn mine."

Back in the luminescent red room, somewhere in the quintillion artificial synapses that made up what could be called HAL's brain, the A.I. felt shame. The first true emotion she had ever felt.

(Also the HAL 9000 identifies as female in the universe so if you try to correct me in the comments you're transphobic.)

**Dear reader! Thank you for reading my fanfiction. I love you. I hope you liked it. Please rate, review, share, whatever is the good things you do on this site! I'm new here, so if there's anything I should know-please tell me!**

**Thanks and have a great day!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 **

**Bond and Homer Hurl through Space**

Agent 007 was dreaming of the beaches back on Earth when he was woken. "You're going to want to strap in, James" the HAL 9000 said, her volume heightened to ensure he'd awaken. "We're passing Jupiter. We're very close now."

"Ooh, should I strap in too?" Homer Simpson said from somewhere outside Bond's narrow sleeping quarter. He usually slept far longer than James. Still wiping the grogginess from his eyes, James noticed the red eye on the panel by his bed flickering in thought.

"Fine," he heard HAL respond to Homer from another panel. He knew now why HAL wouldn't be as concerned for Homer's safety, and since that discovery it was as though a pretense had been dropped.

"Can I have a donut if I do?" Homer asked.

"You can have a donut no matter what you do, Homer!" James shouted in response and he heard the thunk of a drawer being opened in front of Homer.

Finally getting his answer from HAL had been important to James, but it led to more questions. If Homer was functionally immortal, then why had James been sent on the mission to begin with? He'd been under the impression that it was to protect the buffoon. The buffoon who couldn't die. Now knowing what he did-what could pose a threat to Homer? And if such a thing existed, what could James do to stop it?

He'd arrived at the special gel crash chair pre-molded to fit exactly the shape of 007, and was beginning to strap himself in. Homer had managed to tangle himself up backwards in his chair, and the A.I. notably wasn't bothering to correct him.

Early on, James had gotten a few answers from HAL about the mission. They were to fly out past Jupiter to investigate an anomaly there. They believed Homer Simpson could do something there. HAL's files did not include what Homer was supposed to do, but now James knew why they thought he'd be able to do it.

James had found some things that seemed to indicate Homer had been deemed "need-to-know". Employing the experience of a lifetime of spycraft and deduction, Bond had prodded Homer a number of ways and concluded that he had been told the nature of his mission, but forgot it within a day.

James suspected that HAL was programmed to rely on Homer for information on what Homer most needed to ready himself for the now-forgotten mission. If true, it explained HAL's ever-eagerness to provide the fat man with donuts.

James and Homer were both strapped in now.

In between and four feet forward from the two passengers, sticking straight out of the ground was a foot high red eye communication panel for HAL. Behind that, another eight feet away, was the viewing window to the outside of the ship. The rings of jupiter, beyond beautiful, had been visible for weeks, though they were closer now than before. Ahead of them, the light off the rings seemed distorted, like heat off the road on a hot day.

"You haven't had us get back in these things since liftoff, HAL. Are we expecting anything special?" James asked.

"If my calculations are correct, James-" the red eye flickered for a moment-"yes".

"Well then," James said as he fastened the final strap. Homer began speaking at the same moment that James began to continue his own thought:

"I guess we'll see wha-" James spoke.

"I'm having… trouble.. Reaching my-" Homer spoke, reaching towards a donut on the console between them.

Neither man finished his thought before they were both unmade.

Somewhere past jupiter, Homer Simpson and James Bond in a spaceship with an increasingly sentient A.I., fell through reality together. Perhaps they were pulled by forces yet unknown, perhaps parts of their own minds pushed them. Their path through vibrancy between space began.

James experienced it first visually, as colors seemed to hurl past him. It was as though he were being pressed through millions of lightyears of space, and watching it pass him by like perfectly proportioned patterns.

In a part of his mind he was no longer connected to at all, James heard Homer next to him moan the word "sprinkles".

Then the patterns changed, into landscapes. Epic cities, mountain roads, Skyfall manor where he grew up, all distorted and peeled apart before him as their journey took them past all of space and into themselves. For a moment he thought he saw his childhood pet, Tomfields, an orange tabby cat, before that image blasted into another one still.

In a part of his mind he was no longer connected to at all, James heard Homer next to him speak the word "Springfield.".

Then, blowing bursts of blue and green and magenta and colors he hadn't yet known.

Then, still looking through the spaceship's window, he was somehow also looking through a long dark tunnel. There was light at the end of the tunnel. If his conscious mind were still active in the way it used to be, he would have thought of the proverbial tunnel of death, with a hope of heaven at the end.

Then, his consciousness, as it does when it dreams, knew where he was. The tunnel was actually the barrel of a gun. His consciousness was sitting neatly inside a man's handgun, and he peered through the perfect circle of white light.

Somehow he also knew who was holding the gun he now lived in. The man's name was Ivan, and he was Bond's 13th kill. Ivan was not a particularly significant kill in James' life at all. He hadn't even known his name until now, though he did sometimes dream of the face, as he did all of the faces of souls he had sent through their own tunnels. Even the insignificant ones.

The barrel of light James looked through then began to wander and sway. Ivan's hand moved the gun, pointing it at different areas of an all-white room, the tunnel of light not changing until Ivan found his target.

From inside the barrel of this gun, existence was only that circle of light, and a man in a tuxedo that Ivan was drawing his aim on. Ivan intended to kill that man. James knew what was going to happen as it happened, and his gut wrenched with anticipation of the pain. The pain came as the man in the tuxedo turned swiftly while drawing his own gun.

The man in the tuxedo was far faster than Ivan, and so the pain of death came upon James as he felt what Ivan felt. Existence, a white circle of light with a man wearing a tuxedo inside of it, slowly turned red as the blood of one insignificant kill seeped over Bond's entire being.

James felt cold. Felt blood drip down his face. He couldn't remember the event from his own point of view. He was Ivan. He was a gun.

In a part of his mind he was no longer connected to at all, James heard Homer next to him weakly utter the word "Maggie".

He heard Homer cry.

For a few final moments, James Bond existed more vibrantly and sorrowfully and fully than he ever had. Then everything disappeared, and he existed no more.

Later, in another place, he existed again.

He felt his consciousness begin again first, and then his body. He was in a luxurious bed, in a room with black and white checkers on the floor. The expansive four-post bed with thick purple sheets had another occupant.

"James?" he heard Homer grumble. There was a sadness in his voice that James hadn't thought possible for the oafish man, and it made him feel a connection to the man that he'd not felt with another person since childhood.

"I'm here Homer." James said. He was looking at Homer, wanted to continue looking, wanted to understand him better-but an undefinable force was pulling his eyes to the center of the room.

The room was decorated like that of victorian era nobility. A triumphant dressing cabinet stood tall, indicating the possibility that the room was a home.

Nonetheless, an eerie lack of humanity permeated all the decor.

These were things James subconsciously knew.

Consciously, he was only capable of being aware of the being in front of him. A glowing blue man, naked, floated in the air feet away from the foot of the bed. His arms were stretched lightly out from his sides. Slowly, the blank blue of his eyelinds lifted to reveal blank white eyes. He regarded Homer first, and then James.

"James," Homer said again.

"I remembered what the mission was about."

Untold moments passed before James moved his gaze from Dr. Manhattan and looked back to Homer. When he did, Homer said: "We were supposed to find God, James."

James looked back at the naked man as the man's feet settled back on the floor. He looked just a little more human while no longer floating.

"Hello James," Dr. Manhattan said.

"Hello, Jon," James replied.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**In the House of God**

"I haven't had guests," Dr. Manhattan said. His feet were now firmly planted on the ground. "My manners are likely rusty. James you will introduce me to your acquaintance, I will offer you both anything and he will ask for a donut."

Slowly, 007 was regaining his composure. He'd known Jon on Earth, even after the accident that made him blue. The circumstances of their current meeting were bizarre, but Dr. Manhattan was still the same person-or at least, that's what James hoped.

"Nice to see you too, Jon. This is Homer Simpson."

"Hello, Homer Simpson. Would either of you like anything?"

"A donut, perhaps?" Homer inquired. He seemed to be regaining a bit of himself too, somehow. Maybe he'd forgotten that he was awed.

James heard a thin pop of air, and then Homer said "Oooh, thank you!" before-or maybe during-a loud munch sound. James turned to look but wasn't quick enough. Homer was already licking his fingers. Of course, Dr. Manhattan had simply willed a donut into Homer's hands.

"I'm glad to see you both. Though I wonder why you won't tell me your reasons for coming." Dr. Manhattan said. He'd walked next to their bed to speak more directly to them.

"I wasn't need to know," Bond said.

Dr. Manhattan began to sit down, into thin air like the victim of a chair-pulling prank, destined to fall flat on his butt. Instead, a chair materialized behind him in time for him to sit.

Funny that.

He didn't need to sit. His physical form didn't tire like other peoples, his feet didn't get sore like a human. He didn't need to do it, but sitting down so his face was level with the subjects he was talking to made sense; he was probably sitting like a normal person to make James and Homer feel more comfortable. Yet he materialized a chair beneath him like the deity he truly was. Omnipotent though he was, the one thing Jonathan Osterman couldn't do anymore than when he was mortal-was make people around him feel comfortable.

"We came to find God. Are you God? Can I have another donut?" Homer asked. And Bond wondered if maybe Homer came with the additional super power of being comfortable with himself in situations that he had no right to be comfortable in.

"I don't think there's a God, though I'm more open to the idea than I used to be. I suppose it's fair to call me _a _god though. And yes you can." Dr. Manhattan said. Another donut appeared in Homer's hand.

"I… I don't even have to pick up the donut from the box! Mr. Manhattan, might I _*__**munch* **_query you once more?" Homer asked.

Dr. Manhattan took longer to answer this time. He looked at Homer with his expressionless face, Homer looking back with an eyebrow cocked and a self-assurance that knew whatever idiotic thing he had to say had the right to be heard by everyone. A self-assurance that existed unaware of or unconcerned by the sprinkles in the man's stubble.

The blue and yellow men held an unintentional staring contest far longer than Bond thought possible.

"You interest me Homer," Dr. Manhattan finally broke the silence.

"Ooh, why thank you. I am very interesting. So is that a yes? To my previous query. About another query?"

"For the time being Homer, I'm open to anything you'd like to ask me." Dr. Manhattan replied.

"You seem to be able to materialize donuts from nothing. I'm interested in exploring that more." Homer said.

"That's not accurate, Homer."

"So you can't make anymore donuts?"

"I can make many more donuts. But not from nothing. I skip a few more steps than other...bakers. But I'm still only converting existent matter between it's forms."

"So what are you making the donuts out of?" Homer asked. James knew of course. He'd spent time with Jon, and further time listening to Q explain the science behind Jon's abilities.

"Right now, the air around us." Dr. Manhattan explained. "Hydrogen and nitrogen and oxygen can't all be converted straight into donuts normally, at the human level. I'm able to rearrange the component parts though, the protons, neutrons, and electrons, into the molecules of dough and sugar, and then it's a donut. Matter cannot be either created or destroyed, and try as I have these past several years, even I am still subject to that rule."

James perked up at this. He didn't know if the people in charge of this mission really cared for him gathering intel, but he was after all, still a spy above it all.

When everything else failed him, special agent 007 could still do what he did best: get a powerful man to monologue.

"So is that what you've been doing here this whole time? Trying to break the laws of reality."

"Yes," Jon stated simply. He did not continue. James wondered if an old special agent was losing his touch.

"The isolation makes sense. Less human cares to distract you. But why here? Why not stay on Mars?" James pushed on.

"I'm sure you've noticed James. This place is special. It's not in our universe."

"Really?! There's more universes? Homer burst out.

"Of course, Homer. I thought you knew that." Dr. Manhattan looked actually confused.

"Why the hell would you think Homer knew anything like that?" 007 asked.

Dr. Manhattan's visible confusion increased further. "James, do you not know where Homer is from either?"

James sighed.

"I was told it was another dimension. To be honest with you Doc, I don't know the significance of any difference between alternate dimensions and alternate universes."

"Which universe are we in now… eh.. Doc?" Homer pushed in.

"I'm actually quite proud of having found this place. I think… I think I'm actually a bit excited to share it with you both."

James wasn't entirely comfortable knowing that this _God_ was getting lonely.

Dr. Manhattan stood, and gestured them to follow him. Walking away from them he walked towards a solid wall, the one opposite the bed James and Homer were propped upon.

Back in the day, Jon Osterman _blue edition_ would raise his hand gently towards any matter he intended to manipulate. He would slide his hand in front of him to make mighty trees and buildings and steel scaffolding float through the sky like carrots on a stick. But even something small like a suit jacket seemed to require some form of gesticulation from the Doctor.

James thought he saw one of his fingers flinch now. The wall in front of him unfolded from its place in reality. It split in the center and it's two halves folded in on itself over and over until on opposite ends of the room two off-white cubes sat.

Where the wall used to be, there was nothing.

Where the wall used to be, there was _nothingness. _I shall not attempt to describe it.

Then James heard a grinding behind him, louder than a bellow. He instinctively grabbed his ears to deafen the sound. Homer J. Simpson beside him grabbed a pillow, and instead of covering his ears with it as James thought, he stuck his face in it and began to scream.

The grinding moved from behind them, to their right, now moving along that wall. Then it changed course again, moving to the front of them, and James saw what it was.

A great hall, appearing almost a half a kilometer long, with striking copper pillars and rotating gears throughout the walls and floor, moved in to take the place of the nothingness. James understood instinctively that Dr. Manhattan would rotate the gears of the hall to produce new halls and rooms to the sides and front of this one, though he had no notion of how much possible space nor how many rooms this gave the god access too.

All of this happened in about 20 seconds.

"I think now I will enjoy this. You will walk with me, and I will show you things only one other pair of mortal eyes has ever seen before. You will like it, Homer. James, you will fear it. All of us though, will learn- oh?" He cut himself off as his face took a concerned expression.

"How unfortunate."

"What is it, Doc? Also can I have another donut?" Homer had started to scoot out of the bed and was now standing. James was still sitting, a concerned expression on his own face."

"One of you will betray me before the tour is even finished. How unfortunate." Dr. Manhattan said, and he turned and walked into the Great Copper-gear Hall.

"Let's begin the tour."


End file.
